Proxy
by Takashidaimao
Summary: A bump on the head, an abandoned building in the woods, a faceless stalker in the shadows. But what is it? And what does it want with Piccolo? Rated M for adult language and gore.
1. Chapter 1

Piccolo's head was a swirling miasma of pain and confusion. He tried to open his eyes, but the world was nothing but a haze of shadows and vague shapes. He could barely make out the silhouettes of three figures standing over him, but he hadn't the faintest idea who they were. It took a minute before his ears stopped ringing, letting their voices through. They were muffled beyond recognition, but he could just pick up the urgency in one.

The Namekian shut his eyes tightly, letting out a groan as he lifted his palm up to his head. He drew in a sharp gasp the instant he made contact, pulling his hand away as if he'd just touched something extremely hot.

He tried opening his eyes again. He could see a bit better this time, just enough to make out the swath of purple across his palm. He looked past his hand and could just make out one of the figures standing over him; a young man with short, spikey black hair wearing a blue gi. Finally, his urgent pleas made it through.

"-iccolo! Piccolo, are you alright?!" The voice sent a piercing bolt of pain shooting through his skull. He reached out for the hand that was now offered out to him, grabbing it and letting the young man help him up to a sitting position.

Another few hard blinks cleared Piccolo's vision, and he could better see the teen kneeling next to him, a concerned look on his face. On his other side stood Goku, leaning over with his hands braced against his knees, greeting the Namekian warrior back to consciousness with an optimistic smile. Goten stood next to his father, craning his neck curiously to get a better look.

"I'm so sorry about that… I really didn't mean to hit that hard." Gohan offered apologetically, his guilt showing heavily in his onyx eyes. Piccolo furrowed his brow, painful as that was at the moment, trying to remember how he'd ended up flat on his back with his skull cracked open.

He could vaguely recall the afternoon starting as it often did; with a friendly sparring match. Piccolo had wanted to test Gohan, to see if he was still keeping up with his training or if his ridiculous superhero escapades had distracted him. Schoolwork was one thing, even Piccolo knew that to be important, but running around dressed like some comic book character was an inexcusable distraction. He believed he may have even been cocky enough to say 'hit me with all you've got' at one point. That would do it.

"Don't worry about it. You were only doing what you were told." Piccolo replied, pulling himself up to his feet with Gohan's help. He staggered a step or two to the side, but the half-Saiyan teen was there to steady him. Gohan cringed as he saw a small trickle of blood stream down between Piccolo's eyes.

"Hey, Dad. Do you happen to have any senzu beans on you?"

"Nope, sorry. I haven't needed them for so long, I never went to get more."

"Look, it's not that big a deal. It looks a lot worse than it really is. I'll head back home to the Lookout and have Dende heal me." Piccolo interjected, brushing Gohan's arm away stubbornly.

"Okay. Do you need me to come with you?"

"No, I'm fine. I can make it by myself without a damned babysitter." He growled in reply. He immediately realized from his former student's startled reaction that he'd come across as far harsher than he'd intended. He let out a sigh.

"Sorry… I'll be fine. Really." Piccolo added, giving Gohan an apologetic smile. Gohan smiled back.

"Alright. Same time next week?"

"Sounds like a plan."

The two exchanged a small, casual wave before Piccolo took off into the sky.

Piccolo always had a set route he'd fly when traveling between the Lookout and the Son house. The journey weaved from one end of the main continent to the other, dodging major cities and other pockets of human civilization. He avoided known flight paths for commercial air travel, avoided anywhere that he could easily be spotted by the humans below. The last thing he needed was a bunch of rumors floating around about a flying green man. He so hated those UFO hunters and supernatural freaks trying to trace him back to where he lives, making such a big deal out of nothing…

That wouldn't happen so long as he stuck to his normal route. Currently, an endless sea of treetops streamed below him and as far as the eye could see. No one out here to see him, just the calm wind gently rustling through the vast central forest there to accompany him along his journey. It was a comforting scene, almost hypnotic… So much so that he didn't notice the blurring of his vision until it was too late.

He'd only barely managed to slow his flight when he felt consciousness escaping him. He clamped a hand against his head, cursing to himself. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so stubborn, perhaps he should have accepted Gohan's offer after all. He didn't have enough time to regret his decision before he went plummeting down through the trees…

For only the second time today, Piccolo found himself waking up flat on his back with a splitting pain in his head. There were differences this time, of course. This time he wasn't lucky enough to be surrounded by a few close friends. No, here there were only the distant songs of birds to accompany him now.

It took him a moment to register his surroundings. He found himself lying not on the forest floor as he'd expected, but on the hard, concrete floor of a derelict building, the interiors of which were lit only through the massive hole in the crumbling roof directly above him. He could see the treetops through the hole, albeit missing a fair few branches where he'd fallen through. Well, at least he hadn't gone too far off-course. He was still somewhere dead in the middle of Central Forest. The only question now was; what the hell was a building like this doing in the middle of nowhere like this?

After getting up to his feet and dusting himself off, Piccolo took a better look around. It was too dark to see much, but what little he could see spoke volumes. It was an old concrete building, very old, with thick walls and steel girders crisscrossing across the ceiling. It was a sturdy building, but not the sleek, circular construction that was the norm nowadays. No, this type of building hadn't been built in over…

A sudden stabbing pain in his head distracted Piccolo from recalling the era. He decided it really didn't matter. He just had to get back home and heal up before he blacked out again. He'd risen barely an inch off the ground before something pulled his attention right back down again.

There was movement behind him. He instinctually snapped his attention around, eyes scanning through the darkness, his ears perked to pick up even the smallest sound, his mind focused to sense even the most minute life force. He saw nothing, he heard nothing, he sensed nothing. Rather than be satisfied by this, it made him slightly more uneasy. The birds had stopped singing, there wasn't so much as a rustle of leaves outside. Furthermore, he couldn't sense even the energy an ant would give off, which was absolutely impossible. One could sense a bug or two even in cleanroom environments. How could it be that not a single one was in this decrepit old wreck of a building? Or in the surrounding woods, for that matter…

Piccolo lowered back down to the ground and immediately started off in the direction he'd heard movement before. No sooner had he stepped out of the circle of light cast by the hole in the ceiling than an icy chill gripped his entire body. He stopped dead. He knew he hadn't lost that much blood.

He ignited a small ball of ki in his right palm, using the light to cut through the oppressive darkness gripping the building's halls. The appearance was as to be expected. The walls were almost bare concrete, the paint having chipped away long ago, only the stains of water and mold remaining. There were pieces of heavy machinery, pipes and pumps lining some walls, all completely rusted through and crumbling from the wear of time. There were small puddles of stagnant water here and there, accompanied by the heavy smell of mildew and mold. Piccolo had to cover his mouth and nose with his free hand to keep from coughing, the mold irritating his lungs with each breath.

He continued on through several rooms just like the last. He wasn't sure what he was looking for. Hell, he barely knew where he even was. All he knew was that something felt off with this place, and that feeling only increased the further in he delved. Finally, he came across a room with something different.

The reach of his light wasn't ideal, so he'd almost missed it and walked right past the room. It looked to be writing on the far wall, but he couldn't make it out from that distance. He approached to get a closer look, weaving between derelict machinery and fallen chunks of concrete. He got to the far wall, raising his hand up to illuminate the writing.

It was one word stretching across about a meter of the wall surface, written hastily in a substance he couldn't immediately identify; "INSIDE". It wasn't the type of thing one would write on a wall just to creep out gullible ghost hunters. It seemed to have a meaning, but he couldn't begin to discern it.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed it was still wet. He swiped a finger across one of the thin trails dripping slowly down the wall, inspecting the substance. He froze once he realized what it was. It was indeed blood, unsurprisingly, but it wasn't animal blood or even human blood… It was purple. It was _his_ blood. His hand began to shake slightly. He wasn't the type to scare easily. After spending centuries as both God and the Devil, he'd thought there was nothing left to see that could shake him, nothing he hadn't already done with his own two hands.

But this just may fall into that latter category after all. He noticed staining on his other fingertips that matched the dried staining across his palm. He looked back up at the wall, at the word scrawled in his own blood. The frantic strokes were the same width as his stained fingers. _He'd_ done this.

He didn't have time to wonder how or why before he noticed something else. Something new. He couldn't recall if it was there when he'd first looked or if he'd just missed it the first time. It was a symbol. Unfortunately, he didn't get a chance to look at it properly before he heard movement behind him once more.

In an instant, Piccolo pumped the tiny marble of ki in his hand full of energy, expanding it into something powerful enough to disintegrate the whole damned building. He turned, pulling his arm back to strike out at whatever it was that had been following him, whatever it was that had been fucking with him.

Piccolo stopped. Rather, he _thought_ he did. He wasn't in the abandoned building anymore, he was no longer in mid-turn, and the ball of ki in his hand was gone. Instead, he was now standing on the edge of the Lookout, looking towards Kami's Palace as though he'd just casually touched down. He looked at his hands. They were clean. No blood. Not even the stain across his palm from when he was back at Goku's place. He immediately touched the top of his head. There was no pain anymore, nor any blood. It was as if none of it had happened at all. Had it?

"What the _fuck?!"_ Piccolo roared, his frustration boiling to the surface in an instant. Was any of that real? Had he even gone to see Gohan? And, even if it wasn't real, what the hell was it? A hallucination? A dream? Unless he'd recently taken up sleeping while standing up without realizing, the latter seemed unlikely, and the former was a troubling prospect in itself.

"Piccolo?!" The Namekian looked up when he heard his name called. Gohan was running towards him, Dende following close behind.

"Gohan? What are you doing here? I only just left your place. I told you I don't need looking after." He grumbled in mild annoyance, his innate stubbornness coming back in an instant. Both Gohan and Dende stopped in their tracks upon hearing that, glancing between each other. Finally, Gohan spoke up again.

"But… Piccolo… That was three days ago."


	2. Chapter 2

Piccolo sat on the steps in front of Kami's Palace as Dende examined his head. The older Namekian stared off into the distance at nothing in particular, going over what he'd seen in his head. Should he tell them? No. No, they'd just think he was going crazy. Of course, that possibility had occurred to him as well. And what if he _was_ going crazy? Would it be best if he told them? Or should he just keep it to himself?

"He seems fine. I don't see any trace of the injury you described." Dende reported after a while. Strange… the young God didn't seem terribly enthused at that. Gohan, who had been pacing in front of them, came to a stop with a small smile.

"That's good, right? I mean, Namekians can heal injuries like that on their own, can't they?" Gohan asked, to which Dende shook his head.

"Not like this. Our regeneration is controlled by a portion of our brain located at the top of our head. If that gets damaged in any way, even slightly, we aren't able to heal _anything_. From what you described, he shouldn't have been able to regenerate an injury to this area."

"Or," Piccolo interjected, brushing Dende away and standing up. "It could be just what I said earlier; It looked worse than it was."

"Piccolo… You were gone for three days without a trace." Dende offered with a tone of concern in his voice.

"Yeah, and you said you thought you'd only just left my place. Where were you all that time?" Gohan added, arching an eyebrow in slight suspicion. Not that he suspected his old mentor of anything, of course. It was just not like Piccolo to lose track of massive amounts of time like that.

Piccolo hesitated to answer. Should he tell them? Would they even believe him?

"I was… I was nowhere of interest. Nowhere you need to worry about." He replied, avoiding eye-contact with the two of them. He let out a sigh, starting back towards the edge of the Lookout. "Look… I'll see you later this week, Gohan. Don't worry about all this. It's done and over with. Nothing left to worry about."

Piccolo took off before the other two got the chance to stop him. Neither Gohan nor Dende made an attempt to go after him. Gohan was really starting to worry about his old mentor. This just wasn't like him… Piccolo wasn't exactly the most sociable man in the world, but he'd never known him to act so secretive. He turned towards Dende, opening his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a startled shriek.

Dende leaped to his feat reflexively, running from whatever Gohan might have seen. He looked behind him to see a pair of eyes staring at them from a black void. Dende and Gohan simultaneously let out a sigh of relief.

"Shit, Popo… You gotta stop doing that…" Gohan breathed out shakily. Mr. Popo continued to stare at the both of them in that eerie way only Mr. Popo could.

"Watch him." Popo stated simply. Gohan blinked, unsure if he heard correctly.

"What?"

Popo was just inches from him in an instant, causing Gohan to jump back a step. The dark-skinned genie stared directly into the teen Saiyan's eyes.

"Watch. Him. Very. Carefully." Popo spoke each word very slowly and very deliberately. Gohan gave Dende a sideways glance, but the young God looked just as confused as he was. Slowly, the teen nodded.

"Y-yeah, sure… I'll keep an eye on him." He replied, which seemed to satisfy the celestial groundskeeper. Mr. Popo returned inside the palace without uttering another word. Gohan and Dende could do nothing but stare after him in silence.

"I'm, uhh… I'm just gonna go, y'know… check up on Piccolo." Gohan announced after a while, deciding to heed Popo's advice. Dende nodded and Gohan took off in the direction Piccolo had earlier.

Gohan had tracked Piccolo's flight path to somewhere over Central Forest, but his energy reading had just disappeared when he started closing in. The Saiyan teen cursed to himself. He must have noticed that he was being tailed.

He flew to where he last sensed his mentor's energy and dropped down through the canopy. He found himself outside a derelict concrete building, ivy and all manner of plants growing up the neglected walls. Gohan furrowed his brows. Was this where Piccolo had gone? Why? And who would build such a building out in the middle of nowhere?

He scanned the surrounding forest, looking for signs of Piccolo, or anyone really. The entire area looked as though no one had stepped foot there in centuries, yet the building looked somewhat modern in construction. He began making his way around the perimeter of the building, looking for anything he could use. A walk around the first wall revealed nothing unusual, and no Piccolo.

Something moved through the brush. Gohan turned, scanning the tree line, hoping to catch his mentor's trail once more. He saw nothing, not even a swaying leaf that may hint at the sound's direction. He therefore disregarded it as an animal of some sort and continued around the ruin.

Another uneventful walk along what he assumed to be the side of the building yielded nothing of interest. The back wall looked as though it would prove to be just as stark, but just at the far corner was something he hadn't been able to find until now; a door. It looked to be made of heavy steel, pitted and red with a patina of rust. There was no handle. It looked as though there never had been.

Gohan was just about to reach out to see if by some chance the door was unlocked when something else caught his eye. There was something drawn on the wall just next to the door, a symbol of some sort. It was a circle about a foot in diameter with an 'X' drawn through it. At first, Gohan figured it was a graffiti tag or even something to mark the building as condemned. Upon closer inspection he realized it wasn't paint.

He scratched lightly at the substance, some of which flaked off at the touch. Whatever it was, it had dried a while ago. It hadn't been drawn within the last day, he figured. It was blackened, but he did note the vaguely purple hue.

Gohan couldn't help but laugh nervously to himself. If this wasn't Piccolo he was dealing with he'd have thought it was all a big joke to try to freak him out. Who knows, maybe it was? Maybe Dende and Mr. Popo were in on it, too.

More movement behind him. Gohan whipped around, eyes darting from tree to tree, bush to bush. There was nothing, not even a sound. Not even the normal sounds of the forest. There were no birds chirping. Shouldn't there be birds chirping?

"P-Piccolo?!" he called out. If this really was a joke, it had long since stopped being funny. "Piccolo, where are you?! I know you're out here! You don't have to hide from me!"

He got no answer. Of course not. Why did he expect one in the first place? If someone like Piccolo didn't want to be found, he damn sure wouldn't be found. Despite knowing this, Gohan opened his mouth to call out again.

He stopped before a sound could leave him. There was something on his face, something warm running down towards his mouth. He instinctively wiped at it with the back of his hand. His nose was bleeding. If this was all a trick, how had Piccolo made _that_ happen?

"O-okay, you totally got me! Joke's over! You can come out and laugh at me now!" Gohan shouted, unable to keep his voice from cracking slightly. He found himself stepping backwards until his back made contact with the concrete wall of the building, making it impossible for someone to sneak up on him without him noticing. He felt like he was being watched. Not by Piccolo, no. He could deal with that. That would almost be comforting at the moment.

No, whatever was watching him, somewhere out there, unseen… He couldn't even begin to describe the feeling it gave him, the way it made his skin crawl, the chill it drove up his spine. He couldn't sense its energy. He couldn't sense _any_ energy. It was as if there was just a massive void out beyond the trees, all around him, growing larger, closing in on him from all sides.

There was a metallic clank to his right. Gohan felt his heart jump up into his throat. He immediately jumped several feet away from the wall, turning to see what had made the noise. For the first time that day, he saw what it had been. It was the door. It had opened, but only about an inch. He could see nothing but blackness through the crack of the door. He knew it was in there. It had to be. It was in there. It was watching him. It was dangerous. It could kill him. He didn't know how he knew, he just _knew_ it could. He just had to give it a reason. No, it didn't even need that much. It wanted to enjoy this. It wouldn't be quick about it.

It wanted a hunt.

Suddenly, something grabbed him by the arm. Gohan let out a loud shriek he wouldn't ever admit to uttering, spinning on his heel to drive a fist into whatever it was that had him. He managed to stop himself just in time.

Gohan found himself staring up at the very person he'd come to find. Piccolo looked down at the teen, his expression neutral. Gohan looked back over his shoulder, back at that door. It was closed. In fact, it looked as though it had never opened. Not in years, at least. The… whatever it was… The presence. It was gone. At least, it felt like it was. Had he imagined the entire thing?

"Gohan."

He looked back up at his mentor, calmer, but highly confused.

"Piccolo… Did… Did you see anything over by that door?" he asked, hoping to prove to himself that it was all in his head. Piccolo didn't bother to look in the direction of the building. Or perhaps he was avoiding looking at it?

"I only just got here." He replied flatly. Gohan could only stare at him for a long moment. But how? He'd _followed_ him here! Piccolo _had_ to have gotten here first! Had he passed by and hidden his energy? Had he come back to help Gohan when he'd sensed he was in distress? But he hadn't sensed the Namekian coming back his way…

Maybe he _was_ imagining things. The area _was_ kind of creepy, he supposed. It could have brought out those old fears of spooks and specters every child has at one point or another. He let himself breathe a sigh of relief. It wasn't real after all. It couldn't be.

Gohan felt something being placed in his hand. He furrowed his eyebrows, looking down at what he'd been handed. It was a torn piece of white cloth. He looked up at Piccolo and immediately spotted the section of cloth missing from his cape.

"What's this for?" he asked, utterly baffled. Piccolo delivered the answer as though Gohan was stupid not to know what it was for.

"Your nose is bleeding."


End file.
